Report: Skype settlement, sale near

The founders of Skype have agreed to join the investment consortium buying most of EBay’s stake in the online calling service and drop lawsuits against the parties involved, Bloomberg news reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The news service said an official announcement could come later today.

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis sold Skype to EBay in 2005, but claim they retained ownership of the underlying software code. They filed lawsuits against EBay, claiming it broke the licensing terms of the deal, as well as the investors planning to buy the service.

EBay Inc. said in early September it agreed to hand over its controlling stake in Skype to a group consortium led by Menlo Park private-equity firm Silver Lake for $1.9 billion in cash and a note worth $125 million. The other parties included Index Ventures, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Andreessen Horowitz.

It was unclear whether the deal could move forward before the legal issue was resolved.

The pending deal valued the Luxembourg online telephone leader at $2.75 billion — shy of the more than $3.1 billion eBay ultimately paid.

Spokesmen for EBay of San Jose and Joltid Ltd., the company controlled by Zennstrom and Friis, both declined to comment, Bloomberg said.